


happiness to borrow (gonna love you either way)

by stellar_mel



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Gen, Mood Without Plot, me vent-writing after reading a romance novel: you could make a character study out of this!, travellercon showed us quiet-sad jester and fiercely protective beau and i've never loved them more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27010189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellar_mel/pseuds/stellar_mel
Summary: "You ever been so in love," Jester asks, "that you feel sick with it? To the point where you- you can't tell if its real anymore, because it feels so terrible all the time, so," she flutters her hands through the air, can't find the word she's looking for and just whines gibberish instead, "that it can't be real?"Across the table, Beau puts her cup back down.Jester is confused, and goes to Beau for advice.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	happiness to borrow (gonna love you either way)

**Author's Note:**

> Jester going super quiet and seemingly running out of words when she was overwhelmed at Traveller-Con,,, watch how hard I can cry
> 
> This is so massively ambiguous (is this pre-relationship? is this bro-talk? who knows! they dont!). Jester could be having Feelings about any number of people! Abandon any hope for sense, all ye who enter here.
> 
> Title from "Rising Sun" by Prince of Spain!

~*~

"You ever been so in love," Jester asks, "that you feel sick with it? To the point where you- you can't tell if its real anymore, because it feels so terrible all the time, so big, so," she flutters her hands through the air, can't find the word she's looking for and just whines gibberish instead, "that it can't be real?"

Across the table, Beau puts her cup back down. Her straw slides sideways against the rim of the glass, barely-there chapstick blurring the top. 

"What do I do with it, Beau?"

Beau looks at her, and Jester thinks of love. Of wanting to love someone so much, of needing so insistently to latch on and care and show it with everything that you are, that your heart starts trying to claw itself through your sternum when it doesn't get what it wants.

"I can't- I don't know what to do with all of it."

She knows Beau's area of expertise isn't really... love, per se. But she also doesn't want anyone else's opinion. She's so confused she's nauseated with it, and everyone else would just try to set her up with someone specific, or be super-duper awkward, or try to give her bigger advice than she needs, or is part of the problem, and she can't deal with any of that. Not right now.

Her own mug of tea is empty, the spoon staining the table because Beau doesn't own any coasters. Her mouth is dry and tastes like stale sugar. She wants water, or gum; she wants to brush her teeth, because maybe it'll get rid of the headache that's building behind her eyes, or at least give her something to do. 

"Here's the thing," Beau says, finally. Her hands are clasped around her cup, and her fingers interrupt the irregular patterns of condensation on the glass. When Jester angles her body just right, the orange kitchen light shines through the cup, through the cracks in Beau's fingers, and hits the table in pale blotches. Water and fire, dimmed. "Here's the thing. No one's saying you can't just love, right? No one's stopping you. You just gotta put the work in now, meet new people, maybe, or go full koala on the people you already have, but it's on you. There's not going to be anyone that'll, I don't know, set you up, or recognize some sort of innate _something_ in you and do all of the leg work." Jester sticks her hands under her thighs, tries not to fidget. "At least, not in a way that's healthy, probably. This isn't one of those fairy tales, or storybooks, you know? Where your plot happens because it has to, and you just have to be a character worthy enough. You have to drive your own effing plot, you have to sign up for the auditions or, whatever, you have to text that person first. Otherwise, you'll never get anywhere. Even lucky people have to prove themselves at some point."

Jester's not really sure what they're talking about, anymore. Her head's cotton candy, stubbornly refusing to melt. Her mouth is dry.

Beau's radiator starts clicking again as it kicks back on. The weak kitchen light flickers out of time with the beat of Jester's heart in her chest, and the oven clock, still hours behind from that one time their whole neighborhood lost power, blinks at her. Seven turns to eight turns to nine.

Beau hums and gets up, the stool clacking against the edges of uneven kitchen tiles as she pushes it back. She takes Jester's mug, leaves her own glass behind, and the kitchen light shines through it onto the table. The refracted colors on the surface blur and shake; the condensation breaks up the ripples of light from where Jester's bouncing leg is disturbing the glass. Jester's headache grows, and sourceless tears burn at the corners of her eyes. The sounds of the sink running join the rest of the kitchen's noises, and when Beau sits back down a minute later, Jester's mug has been cleaned and filled with clear tap water. It pearls at the sides of the mug where Beau didn't dry it fully. The handle is still wet. Jester swirls the water around her mouth and tries to get rid of the stale taste of tea and sugar.

Beau sips from her drink, tries to make eye contact with her. Aren't her hands cold, holding onto the glass like that? 

"Anyway," Beau says, once she finishes her glass, quietly at the end, straw now staining the table next to Jesters spoon, "you have to tell people things straight up, sometimes. You have to reach out and talk, but, like, for real. Sincere. Text them, maybe, if you have to. I don't think it's as hard as you're making it out to be."

Isn't it, though? Maybe not. Maybe it's just easier to think about it, in the pale light, measly kitchen lamp stuttering above them, radiator clanking out of time with the oven clock. Her mouth is so stale her tongue sticks to her teeth, gets caught on the roof of her mouth. It's not like words could get through that. Talking. Gods. Normally it's easier than this.

Jester rubs the back of her own knuckles, pinches the skin of her palm, tries to dent the spaces between her fingers with her nails.

Beau reaches over the table and holds Jester's right hand in both of hers, wiggles it around with a grin when Jester makes eye contact with her. Her hands are chilled from the condensation on the glass. Jester puts her other hand back in her lap. She plays with the seams of the hoodie Beau gave her, earlier, when she arrived unannounced and shivering.

"Hey," Beau says, soft and sudden. "You know I love you, right?" 

Chilled condensation and sugar. Cotton candy melts so quickly, doesn't it? 

Jester's tongue is stuck in her mouth, but she brings her other hand back up, holds Beau's cold fingers in her own, squeezes them. She presses her thumb gently into Beau's wrist, slides it up her palm, laces their fingers together. Squeezes again. Beau squeezes back, and smiles. For a few seconds, the oven clock and the radiator sync into perfect time.

  


~*~

**Author's Note:**

> I recently read _Kitchen_ for the first time, can you tell


End file.
